Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(100)

Just as Darya was about to crawl across the space to protect her, the car turned hard into the narrowed stall where the self-pay gate was lowered and jerked to a stop. The sudden stop threw her and the man beside her off balance.

The driver’s window hummed as they lowered it and Darya scrambled to her knees, but her guard whipped out a knife and moved in between them. “Peremeshcheniye i ona umirayet.” Move and she dies.

Darya froze, gaze sliding to Gia’s slumped body. “Ty yey bol’no. Vse, chto ya khochu sdelat’, eto ubedit’sya, chto ona v poryadke.” You hurt her. All I want to do is make sure she’s okay.

Through the front windshield, she spied the tip of the white gate raising up. Just a few more seconds. Enough to get both the SUV and the trail car wedged in the narrow aisle and they’d have help.

The SUV inched forward just as a white Cadillac Escalade sped forward and screeched to a halt in front of them.

Beckett’s voice shot through the earpiece. “Gia go.”

One second.

One freeze-frame moment, then Gia launched for the man beside her and all hell broke loose.





Chapter Thirty-Six

Too much noise and not information. Knox fisted both hands on the desk in front of him, his forearms pressed so hard on the high-priced furniture the wood groaned in protest. He didn’t dare touch his laptop for fear he’d squeeze the ever-loving hell out of it or chuck the damned thing out the window.

Beckett, Danny, Axel and Ivan barked out feedback, but the details were too clipped to form a decent picture. It was still better than the Russian bullshit flying from the mouths of Sergei’s crew, though. Those words he didn’t stand a hope of understanding.

And not one peep from Darya. Only a few grunts and shouts from Gia beside her.

“Last one,” Beckett said, followed by a loud thump that sounded like a car door slamming. “Danny with me. Ivan get the tail car. Axel back the Caddie up.”

“On it,” Axel said.

Another thump sounded. Then another.

Engines revved and tires squealed, but Knox didn’t dare speak. The last thing any of them needed were distractions.

“You breathin’, Knox?”

Zeke cut in first. “Only one thing you’re gonna say that makes that happen.”

“Well, time to start,” Beckett fired back, more than a little satisfaction coating his voice even through his accelerated breaths. “Your girl’s clear, men are contained, and we’re on the move.”

Fuck.

He tried to relax. Tried to force his hands to uncoil and his mind to unhinge from the terrified freeze-frame it had held for the last thirty seconds. “Where’s Darya?” he finally managed, though how enough air made it up the back of his throat to ask he couldn’t figure. God knew his diaphragm was still knotted up like a pretzel.

Fumbling sounded and a second later Darya’s shaky voice sounded through the line. “I’m here.” Heavy huffs filled what would have been silence, but the smile in her words lingered. “I lost my earpiece in the shuffle, but I’m fine.” An adrenaline-coated laugh followed tight behind her claim. “We’re all fine.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Danny chimed in.

Already back in tactical mode, Beckett’s voice sliced through the feed. “Knox, need you to check for any reports from police. Caught a few onlookers in the middle of it all. Sergei’s got Ruslan’s men in the cargo van behind us. Not gonna go good if he gets busted before we can get intel out of ’em.”

As a way of getting his head straight fast, the need for intel worked like little else could have. Before his brain could even fully process the request, his fingers were flying over the keyboard, intercepting 911 dispatches the way he used to just for shits and grins as early as high school. “Two calls. Intercepted them both. No dispatches sent. How far out are you?”

“Just pullin’ onto the service road, takin’ it slow to blend in,” Beckett said. “Axel, get on 75. We’ll take the service road to give us more time. Sergei, you with us?”

“Keycards to Ruslan’s suite and phones secured,” Sergei said. “No outgoing calls after we engaged. Only two others before we moved in, none to Ruslan.”

“So, Ruslan’s got no ETA and no alert for what happened,” Axel said.

“We hope,” Beckett confirmed. “Better not to get too cocky. Not until they’re out for the count and we’re the only ones standing.”

Knox magnified the camera feeds he’d kept pinned to the corner of his screen. “He’s still got two guards outside the front door we’ll need to deal with. You get a head count on what’s waiting inside yet?”

“Give me thirty minutes.” The low rumble in Sergei’s voice ensured whatever went down inside that van in the next half hour wouldn’t be pretty for the captured men, but Sergei was definitely looking forward to it.

“Darya, you got your phone?” Knox said.

“Um...” Movement sounded through the line along with a decent amount of rustling. “Yes, I have it.”

“Good. Anyone needs me, ping Zeke. I’m offline.” He tugged his headset free and punched her number on speed dial.

“We did it,” was her answer. Part whisper, part overwhelming thrill. “You should have seen Gia. I thought the guy trying to tie her up had knocked her out, but when Beckett said, ‘Go,’ she sprung into an action hero. I want to learn how to do that.”